


Pure Imagination

by aibidil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boys Kissing, Career Angst, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Depression, Getting Together, Golden Trio bedsharing, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Humor, Imagination, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Potions, Skateboarding, The Golden Trio, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 00:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aibidil/pseuds/aibidil
Summary: An eighth-year tale of depressed happiness, reluctant imagination, and conflicted hope. And skateboarding.





	Pure Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to **goldentruth813** , **phdmama** , and **frnklymrshnkly** for helping this project to see the light of day, especially for helping ease my worries about getting depression and therapy right. 
> 
> This is a story in which depression features heavily, but it's not a sad story. While the experience of depression in this fic is informed both by my experience with and reading about depression, I don't imagine it is a representation that applies universally. If you're reading this and struggling, I hope you can find a Penelope and the help you need. <3
> 
> Spotify playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/wz2ay0oiq6i8gof2yeu4552uu/playlist/6XnV33BZ0WWYwHc21LiDwL?si=gJr22SxORCmSnavhouOZQg)!

“It’s shit,” Harry said.

“Harry,” Penelope replied, leaning forward in her leather wingback chair, “I'm not saying that these depressive thoughts you're having are _wrong._ But when people are depressed they tend to think their thoughts are like, absolute truth. But we can't really know what truth is, right? Anything could happen in the future, good things included."

Harry fidgeted in his seat. She was right that he felt he was seeing the truth. That post-war politics in Magical Britain were fucking hopeless. That the left’s self-congratulatory post-war attitude was alienating those who had been neutral, causing a political rift that was preventing alliances needed to actually pass legislation. That the surviving Death Eaters’ imprisonment in Azkaban wouldn’t eradicate their views from society. That the bigots wouldn’t ever be cured of their prejudices. That people were dead and never coming back, and Harry could’ve made better decisions that may have saved them. That Hogwarts and Dumbledore had completely failed to prepare them all—him, especially—for life after the war.

That this “eighth year” was a total farce.

He’d said all of this to her already. “But I am seeing the truth. Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said easily. “No one can know for sure, though I’m sure you’re right about much of it.”

Harry looked at his lap. He didn’t want to be here.

McGonagall’s first order of business upon becoming Headmistress had been to hire three Mindhealers to work full time at Hogwarts for the next year. One, Penelope, would work solely with the returning eighth years. For the eighth years, weekly therapy sessions were a mandatory part of the curriculum. The other two Mindhealers were working with the rest of the student body as needed.

Harry hadn’t said this to anyone, but he was grateful that McGonagall was forcing them all to do this. Even if—especially if—he didn’t want to be here.

“Until the next time we meet, this is what I want you to do,” Penelope said, her tone gentle. “Go visit Madam Pomfrey sometime today. I will let her know you're starting a course of Serotonin Potions. If you find yourself having depressive thoughts—such as thinking that this school year is a waste of time, or thinking that the new Ministry is going to be, what did you call it? A bureaucratic, corrupt nightmare?—try to pause—”

Harry opened his mouth to object, but she held up a hand to insist on not being interrupted.

“Try to simply pause. Simply tell yourself, ‘That may be true, but right now I should focus on on what to have for breakfast.’ Or ‘That may be true, but right now I should grab some mates and go play Quidditch.’ Or ‘That may be true, but right now I should start my Charms essay.’”

Harry noticed his trainer was fraying at the toe, where the canvas met the sole. He looked up and nodded at Penelope. “Okay. I’ll try.”

***

Harry and Ron had been assigned a room in the West Tower, which was serving as eighth-year dormitory. Hermione, who’d been assigned to room with Lavender, spent every night in Harry and Ron’s room. (Parvati, who’d been assigned with Padma, stayed with Lavender; Padma was sleeping with Terry in his room with Justin; Justin sometimes ended up crashing in the empty room that had been assigned to the Patils. And so on.)

On the first night of the year, Hermione had Transfigured the two beds into one enormous bed, and since then, Hermione and Ron would fall asleep each night wrapped up in each other with Harry, who slept on the other side of the bed, an arm’s distance away. When they were awake and not at lessons, they covered the bed with books as they studied, napped, and ate biscuits they hoarded from the Great Hall. By the end of each day the duvet was covered with crumbs and ink stains, and once, a melted Cadbury Flake.

Harry drowsed against a pile of pillows, opening his eyes when he heard Hermione’s warm laugh from the other side of the bed. He sat up, righting the book that had fallen off his knees while he napped.

“Hey Harry,” Hermione said. “Listen to this. Ron tried to get a book about sex from the library, only the Hogwarts library doesn’t really have any sex books, as we all found out in about year two, so what he found was this, in with the Muggle anatomy books.”

Ron started to laugh, his leg slung over Hermione’s lap and his face reddening as he tried to suppress his chuckles. 

Hermione cleared her throat. “As the male body enters the excitement stage, the spongy tissue becomes erect. A penile erection is caused by the release of nitric oxide from neurons into the arterial blood supply of the penis." She paused, looked like she was about to burst into laughter, but managed to arrange her face back into a serious mask. "This chemical compound causes the blood vessels to relax and allows the tissue to become engorged with blood. Also, during this stage, the tip of the penis becomes lubricated with secretions of the blubo-urethral glands and the testicles tighten.”

Every time Hermione uttered the word “penis” in the erudite voice she was affecting, Harry and Ron laughed harder. By the time she got to “blubo-urethral,” tears were streaming down Ron’s face.

“Stop! Stop!” he cried. “I can’t!”

Hermione started to giggle and threw the book onto the floor. “Oh Merlin, that’s funny.”

Harry’s laughter faded into a lazy smile. He loved his friends. They were alive. They were happy enough, weren’t they? 

“Should we go out there?” Ron asked after a minute, nodding his head towards the door. 

“Not hungry,” Harry said, grabbing a pack of Bertie Botts from the pile of nicked junk food in the centre of the bed.

Hermione didn’t even answer—her head was already back in her Arithmancy book.

“Yeah,” Ron said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Let’s just stay here.”

Harry opened his Potions book to read the section on viscosity agents for the fifth time. Maybe this would be the time the information finally stuck.

***

“I have a question for you,” Penelope said, after listening to Harry talk for awhile the next week. “What do you think the opposite of depression is?”

Harry picked at a thread on his jeans. He wasn’t an anxious person, but he always felt a bit anxious in here. “Happiness.”

“Nah,” she said, and smiled. “You’re depressed, but you’re happy sometimes, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, and it was true. He felt love and happiness and all that stuff. He wasn’t sure he felt those emotions the way he was supposed to—whatever that even meant—but he felt them.

“Consider this,” Penelope said. “The opposite of depression is vitality.”

“Vitality,” Harry echoed, the meaning of the word not making sense in the moment.

“Vitality. Feeling alive,” she said. “Mental and physical vigour. Feeling lively and animated. Wanting to do things. Wanting to try.”

“I don’t want to do things,” Harry said.

“I know,” Penelope answered. “But you have preferences about how to spend your time. What do you want to do?”

“Sleep. Hang out with Ron and Hermione, and some of the others. Go through the motions of going to class, eat junk food on the bed.”

“You do things, you make choices about your behaviour—so let’s try to think about choices that will push you towards health, rather than further away, yeah?”

Harry looked at the rug, then made himself look back up at her.

“I know you don’t want to,” she said, giving him a kind smile. “But do you think you could force yourself to go outside for five minutes every day, even if you don’t want to? Maybe drink more water.”

“I want to want to,” Harry said, trying to make himself clear.

“I know.”

Harry sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

***

Harry sat on the grass under a tree, the last of the autumn leaves falling, Hermione’s head in his lap. Ron was running around them with a practice Beaters’ bat and Bludger. The practice Bludger was charmed to challenge the Beater, on foot, to hit it. It wouldn’t hit anyone else, it would only dive for the person holding the bat. Ron was knackered, and they’d only been outside for five minutes.

Hermione had a giant stack of pamphlets resting on her knees. “Healer?” she asked.

“No,” Harry replied. “I don’t want a career where people are going to die on me. I’ve had enough of that.”

“Professional Quidditch.”

“And do what when I have to retire in ten years?”

“Teacher.”

“No. Can you imagine me grading papers?”

“Auror.”

“No. No.”

“Write a memoir.”

“No. I don’t want people knowing more about me than they already do.”

“Magical carpenter.”

“Is that even a thing?”

“How do you think sentient houses get built?”

“No.” Harry sighed, picking up a brown leaf and pressing it between his thumb and forefinger, watching it crumble. “Have you decided?”

Hermione tilted her head back to look at him, the cloudy sky threatening rain in the background. “I’m going to apply to the programme in magical law at Oxford.”

Harry smiled. “You’ll be great.”

“Gahhhhhhh!” Ron ran by, bat outstretched, lunging at the Bludger.

Hermione and Harry tried not to laugh at him. Ron had been waking up almost nightly from nightmares, and Harry was glad the lack of sleep wasn’t affecting him overly much.

“Mi,” Harry said, watching Ron run in the other direction as the Bludger changed course, “we’ll be okay, right?”

“Of course,” she said.

***

Harry glanced again at the parchment in his hand. Penelope was making the eighth years do “workshops” to learn techniques to deal with some of their issues. (Harry insisted on making air quotes every time he said “workshop.”) They were being broken into groups. Hermione had reported back from the anxiety group, going on and on about how amazing it was that Penelope was incorporating Muggle cognitive-behavioural therapies.

Harry had tuned her right out, but he was glad her workshop had been before his so at least he had a general idea of what to expect. 

What he did not expect was to open the door to Penelope’s office and see a familiar head of white-blond hair poking obnoxiously over the top of one of her wingback chairs.

Somehow, in the midst of all the other shit he was dealing with, the fact that Malfoy was one of the people whose post-war mental health issues were most similar to Harry’s really seemed beyond the pale.

Harry took a deep breath and forced his feet to move farther into the room, taking the purple armchair next to Malfoy.

They sat in complete silence—Harry kept looking at the door, wondering which of the rest of the eighth years would be wandering in to join their den of depression—until Penelope came in. 

“Excellent!” she said. “You’re both here!”

Both? As in the exhaustive list of everyone in this workshop consisted of two people, Harry and Malfoy? 

Sweet Merlin’s knickers.

It wasn’t that Harry wasn’t getting along with Malfoy—Harry’d just kind of ignored him, like Harry ignored most everyone else. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He always had half an eye on Malfoy, if they were in the same space. Old habits.

Harry scrunched lower in his chair.

Penelope sat across from them, acting for all the world as if she were unaware of the history between them, which was impossible, because she’d been talking to both of them weekly for a few months and she knew that Malfoy had fought, what Malfoy had been, what Malfoy had done in the war.

“Welcome! This workshop is not going to be for discussing personal issues—it’s not like group therapy. It’s for learning specific techniques to help deal with depression. We’ll continue discussing personal issues and dealing with your trauma in your individual sessions. But the first thing I want to establish here is trust.”

Harry couldn’t help it—he snorted.

Malfoy, after flicking his haughty gaze to Harry, sat even taller.

“Harry, do you have a problem?” Penelope asked.

“Trust?” Harry said. “Do you have any idea the crap that Malfoy and I have been through, how we’ve been at each other’s throats?”

“Yes,” she said, just like that. “And you’ve each done good and bad things to each other, and you each suffered in the war. So you are each in a position to respect what the other is going through.”

Harry stared at her long enough that she eventually added, “Is this going to be a problem?”

Harry had come to like Penelope in the weeks they’d been meeting. She was kind and fair, but firm and took no shit. He found that he didn’t want to show her that she’d overestimated his capability—he didn’t want to prove that he was even more fucked up than she already thought.

He sighed. “No, it’s fine. We’ll just call it even, then, both coming here and having to trust the other. Kind of like how we both almost killed each other and both saved each other’s fucking lives.”

Penelope’s eyebrows rose. 

“Yes, Potter,” Malfoy drawled, finally speaking. “Thank you. Being forced to sit in the same room with each other and to observe basic manners is exactly the same as the time I refused to identify you to my insane aunt or the time you flew me to safety out of literal Fiendfyre. Thank you for that helpful analogy.”

Penelope held up a hand. “This is not group therapy. If you two need counselling to work through your relationship issues, it’ll have to happen at a separate time.”

Harry spluttered, turning to look at Malfoy, whose mouth had fallen open as he stared at Penelope. Harry noted with some satisfaction that his gaping mouth betrayed poor manners.

“No, today we’re here to discuss strategies to interrupt the path of negative, unhelpful thoughts,” Penelope continued before they could object further. “You are both smart people—”

Malfoy took his turn to snort, but Penelope ignored him.

“—so I know you’ll be able to understand what I mean when I say that your depression is causing you to employ logical errors in your thought processes. If we learn how to analyse these logical errors, we can identify our unhelpful thought patterns and redirect them with alternative thoughts.”

Harry was slightly cheered by the fact that Malfoy looked affronted at the accusation of “logical error.”

“For example,” Penelope said, “and I know this type of example does not apply to either of your cases so spare me your objections, imagine you didn’t get an invitation from some friends going out to lunch. You feel bad, your negative thoughts spiral: they hate me, they don’t want to be friends, no one ever wants to hang out with me. That’s what we’ll call the ‘negative automatic thought.’ The next step is to think about evidence that supports and does not support that thought. So while the lack of invitation supports it, the facts that you were busy with a project, your friends have invited you to other things, et cetera, all point to the fact that your friends don’t hate you. It’s in your power to come up with an alternate thought, different from your negative automatic thought. In this case it could be something like: ‘They didn’t invite me today, but I know I’ll see them this weekend.’”

Harry and Malfoy stared at her. Malfoy eventually spoke. “No offence, Penelope, but I do not think Potter or I are depressed about social invitations.”

“Of course you’re not,” Penelope said with a smile. “I used something unrelated because otherwise you’d be too defensive to understand the process. I want you each to come up with an example—real or imagined—of a situation and an associated automatic negative thought.”

Neither spoke.

“Harry, you first.”

Harry said the first thing that came to mind. “Er, situation: I need to decide what to do after school. Automatic negative thought: every job fucking sucks.”

Malfoy sniggered. Harry frowned—was Malfoy laughing at him or with him? He wasn't sure which he preferred. It would be a bit much to bond over this "workshop."

Penelope smiled. “Good one. Now let’s brainstorm evidence for and against, and what an alternative thought could be.”

A minute of complete silence followed.

“I can hear the flitterbies humming!” she chided.

“I can think of lots of evidence to support my conclusion that every job sucks,” Harry said, and he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Malfoy cover a half-smile.

“That specific type of unhelpful thinking falls under the classification of ‘overgeneralising.’”

“Is it overgeneralising, though?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I like my job,” she said with a smile. 

Thirty minutes passed in which Harry and Malfoy, both depressed, both teenagers, reluctantly yet resolutely argued every point Penelope tried to add to the “evidence that does not support the thought” column on her parchment. In the end, they agreed on, “There are people in the world who allegedly enjoy their jobs,” but they’d run out of time, and Penelope sent them off with an assignment to write down their negative thoughts and the situations that triggered them and to think about alternative ways to respond.

As they left the room, Harry asked curiously, “Do you actually think all jobs are crap, or did you just feel like arguing?”

Malfoy, surprisingly, grinned. “I’m a Malfoy. What do you think? See you later, Potter.”

***

Harry had no trouble writing down his negative thoughts. In fact, he found he enjoyed it. Every time something annoyed him, he would jot it down on Penelope’s Thought Record. It was oddly satisfying, like complaining to a friend, except the parchment didn’t get tired of his negativity. Just, somehow, none of the other columns ever got filled in.

He enjoyed it, anyway, until Hermione referred to it as his “journalling.”

She was doing a similar exercise, only with the aim of stopping her obsessive worrying. Except Hermione, ever the good student, had filled in every column of every row and had to append extra parchment to contain her thoughts on the matter. Ron’s workshop focussed on overcoming fears, or something, but Ron’s parchments were completely blank.

At the next “workshop” with Penelope, she sat looking at Harry's and Malfoy's parchments, both with full “negative automatic thoughts” columns and nothing else filled in.

“Did the two of you consult on this?” she asked, exasperated.

Malfoy scoffed at the suggestion.

“Alright,” she said. “Well, at least we know I was right to pair you for this. Let’s try to work through some of these. Let’s try to identify what type of unhelpful thinking you’re engaging in.”

They spent a full thirty minutes working on Harry’s automatic negative thought, “post-war wizarding politics is hopeless.” Penelope had to stop the two of them once they’d offered a combined twenty-four items for the “evidence for” category and not a single item in the “evidence against” category. 

“I can think of a lot,” Penelope eventually said. “For example, we could write, ‘Voldemort is dead.’”

Harry and Malfoy both opened their mouths to object—Harry wondered exactly how Malfoy planned to argue that Voldemort’s death did not count as evidence for the hopefulness of wizarding politics—but Penelope stopped them. “No, this isn’t an argument. We’re not in law school. It’s a simple statement. How about ‘data show young people are less likely to tolerate blood prejudice’?”

“But—” Harry began, ready to rant about how plenty of young people were still prejudiced, how young people didn’t have political power yet, how they’d be constrained by the conservative nature of the Wizengamot…

“You know what?” Penelope interrupted, not willing to listen to Harry’s depressive political nihilism. “The problem is you two are lacking imagination. You’re stuck in a cycle of negativity and you have forgotten how to envision anything good happening.”

Malfoy sighed. “We got the miracle already,” he said. “Why should we think we’ll get any more unlikely gifts? We need to be realists.”

“What miracle did you get?” Penelope questioned.

“Potter lived. The war ended.”

Harry stared at him. Malfoy looked genuine, not sarcastic. He placed his right ankle on his left knee; his shoes had that undefinable look that indicated they cost more than Harry’s entire wardrobe.

If Hermione were there she would’ve said, “The war didn’t end. Harry ended it,” because she didn’t like the way people were already talking about it as if it had been an inevitability. But Malfoy’s words felt true to Harry. The war ended, and here they were.

“Good things will continue to happen,” Penelope said. “Good things happen every day. Today I ate an almond croissant, and I’m going to walk to Hogsmeade. And even these big things that you feel so strongly about, the political things, are not foregone conclusions. Someone could spearhead a movement to change the structure of the government. You could do that.”

“I can’t even force myself to go outside and play Quidditch because I just want to sleep all day,” Harry said. He’d assumed she was suggesting that he, not Malfoy, was the one who could hypothetically overhaul the Ministry. Perhaps that was an unfair assumption.

“But I’m not asking you to consider whether things are likely,” she said. “I’m asking you to think about wildest dreams. Think of a utopia, even.”

“Yes, Potter,” Malfoy drawled. “What are your wildest dreams?”

“Up until about six months ago, Malfoy, my wildest dream was that the war would end and everyone I love would still be alive,” Harry said, suddenly exhausted. “It didn’t happen, though truthfully, we came a lot closer than I thought we would.”

“Okay, change of plans!” Penelope announced with a clap of her hands. “We’re not going to sit around hashing out all of the reasons we have to be depressed. That’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid. I have a new assignment for you. Next week, during this time, please head to the advanced Potions classroom in the dungeon.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, realising a moment too late that Malfoy was almost definitely doing the same thing from where he was seated on Harry’s right.

“No questions,” she said, shooing with her hands to get them out of their seats. “Keep up with the other assignment in the meantime, and try to fill in some of the other columns this time.”

Harry slung his bag over his shoulder, said goodbye, and walked out of the classroom numb with the realisation that he didn’t have any wild dreams anymore. He didn’t have any dreams at all.

***

At Harry’s last private session with Penelope, he’d decided that the number one thing that would make him happy was to go flying, so he’d promised her that he’d (try to) go with Ron.

Ron chatted happily as they walked down to the pitch, and once Harry got his arse out of the West Tower, he was feeling pretty good about going, too, even if he did still feel a bit sluggish. The cloudy skies seemed to echo his energy level.

“But like, Flitwick was a world-champion dueller. Flitwick!” Ron said. “Wouldn’t you give anything to see it? Why didn’t Flitwick volunteer to help with that duelling club?”

“Because of Lockhart,” Harry remembered, laughing.

“Oh yeah,” Ron said. “But I want to see young Flitwick, taking all comers! Firing off offensive spells! What do you think his signature move was? Because I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t duel him.”

“Me neither,” Harry agreed. “I don’t have a death wish.”

They walked past the Forbidden Forest, and for a moment, the air seemed to crackle with tension. Harry knew Ron was remembering what Harry had told him about how he’d died, and hadn’t been sure he wanted to come back. Harry knew Ron knew Harry was thinking about it.

“I had a letter from Charlie,” Ron said, too loudly, too quickly, but Harry was grateful.

“Oh yeah? How’s he doing? How’re the dragons?”

“I dunno,” Ron said, waving his freckled hand. “You know how he gets in those letters. I can never keep the dragons straight.”

“It’s not that hard,” Harry said. He loved Charlie’s letters. They were like owl-post instalments of a dragon soap opera. “Marjorie is the Hebridean Black, who is the mum of…”

“Seriously, Harry, I’ll let you read the letter yourself.”

They’d reached the pitch. “A race, or Keeper-Chaser?” Harry asked.

“I’m not racing you,” Ron said, slinging a leg over his broom. “Keeper-Chaser!”

Harry grabbed a Quaffle from the shed, then took to the air. He much preferred flying without worrying about a Quaffle, and Ron was a much better Keeper than Harry was scorer, but as Harry flew around the pitch, turning to speed towards Ron’s goal posts, he grinned.

***

Harry approached the Advanced Potions classroom cautiously. He hadn’t snuck around like this since the fucking war, but he didn’t know what to expect, and he wanted to peek inside and figure out what they were doing without immediately having to deal with Malfoy.

When he glanced into the room, Malfoy was there, standing in front of a desk across from Penelope and Professor Slughorn. 

There was nothing for it. Harry walked in. “Hello.”

"Harry, my boy!" Slughorn chortled. "Welcome!"

Harry approached the desk next to Malfoy. "Hey, Malfoy."

Malfoy looked up. “Hello.” The git’s face was impenetrable, and his hair, which he no longer wore slicked back, fell across his face in an elegant way that made Harry want to side-eye his own wild hair.

Harry dropped his bag onto the floor.

“Thanks for coming," Penelope said with a smile. "Today we're going to brew the Draught of Pure Imagination.”

“The what?” Harry said.

"The Draught of Pure Imagination," Slughorn enthused. "A lovely little concoction. I may nip a small bit of it for myself, I dare say. Ho ho!"

"Draught of Pure Imagination has been used for many purposes since its invention in 1412," Penelope said. "It is one of the primary components of traditional wizarding treatment of depression. In recent years, evidence supports a more holistic treatment approach, whereas the Draught of Pure Imagination is more like treating a symptom without touching the underlying causes. It will not be part of your ongoing treatment plan, but an experiment."

"Mr Malfoy, Mr Potter," Slughorn said, his little eyes twinkling. "Who knows how the potion works?"

Neither of them answered. Harry wondered why Malfoy was holding back; he always knew about potions.

"The potion does what you’d imagine," Slughorn explained, "enhances the drinker’s imagination. It does not affect logic, knowledge, wishes, desires, or any of the mechanisms of the mind that lead to mental illness. All it will do is enhance your imagination."

Penelope nodded, then added, "Unlike Serotonin Potions, the Draught of Pure Imagination is not a potion that can be taken often, as it can become addictive and distracting. Imagination is one of those faculties that is necessary in moderation but dangerous in excess, as it can cause people to withdraw from reality. Imagination enhances reality, but we cannot allow it to _overpower_ reality."

She paused, giving them a chance to speak, but they didn't and she continued. "You will brew it today under Professor Slughorn's guidance. It will then require a week to mature, and you will take the potion this time next week." 

With a smile and a pat on the back as she walked by, Penelope left them with Slughorn.

He placed a heavy volume called _The Subtle Art of Mind Potions_ on their desk. "You’ll find it in ‘Chapter Thirty-Nine: Potions of Perspective.' Let me know if you have any questions; I daresay you two will have no trouble with it! I am going to Conjure a settee and mark some second-year essays on bezoars."

Harry watched, fascinated and a bit appalled, as Slughorn made himself comfortable on a velvet settee at the other side of the room, cocooning himself in an afghan and setting out a tin of chocolate-covered figs on the side table. He pulled out a stack of essays and a large purple quill and began marking.

Harry eventually tore his eyes away from Slughorn's luxuriating and turned to Malfoy. “Fucking _imagination_? They're batty.”

Malfoy seemed amused at Harry's reaction. He started to whistle with the air of a person who thought he was making a very good joke.

Harry squinted. He knew that song. “Are you—are you whistling Willy Wonka?” 

“Come with me,” Malfoy sang, quite like he was starring in a Gilbert and Sullivan production, “and you’ll be!” 

“You know fucking Willy Wonka?!” Harry spluttered.

Now Malfoy's brow wrinkled with confusion. “Of course. Willy Wonka was one of the first wizarding films, Potter, keep up. How did _you_ see it, growing up with Muggles?”

Harry didn’t say that he had only ever heard it from around the corner of whatever room Dudley was in when it played. Harry’d enjoyed Dudley’s similarity to the various non-Charlie children, even if he couldn’t see the screen.

“Let’s just brew, okay?” Harry said.

Malfoy sighed. “I didn’t mean anything bad about Muggles. I was just trying to talk. Merlin, I don’t even know why I try.”

“Try what?” Harry asked, annoyed at Malfoy's annoyance, fetching a cauldron from the shelf. “Talking like a normal person?”

Malfoy leaned aristocratically, his hand on the desk, making no attempt to help or to pretend to help gather supplies. “Perhaps you ought to try it, Potter, as you seem to be the one snapping at me.”

Harry let the cauldron thud down on the table with a bit more force than was necessary, and he felt conflicted. On the one hand, being annoyed at Malfoy felt so normal, as normal as lazing around with Ron and Hermione. But on the other hand, Harry had no desire to fight with him. He sighed. “I don’t have the energy to fight with you.”

“Yes, well, you don’t have the energy for anything this year, do you?” Malfoy said, flipping open the book to find the instructions for the Draught of Pure Imagination.

“You’re one to talk,” Harry said, slumping onto a stool. 

“I’m aware we’re both completely fucked up,” Malfoy said without looking up, his eyes finding the page. “Though, at least I make it to the Great Hall for meals. Well, most meals.”

Harry ignored him, and half expected Malfoy to order him to gather ingredients. But instead Malfoy checked the instructions, his pale finger running down the page as he whispered the necessary ingredients under his breath, then turned and walked to the supply closet.

Harry stared at the book, alternating between blank staring and wondering why Penelope was forcing them to go through this ridiculous exercise.

Malfoy returned, Levitating the necessary ingredients in front of him and landing them gently on the desk. They reached a silent agreement that Malfoy would brew it, since Harry was pants at Potions and Malfoy, presumably, though not definitively, was not interested in getting poisoned.

Draco counted out six dried eyebright flowers and placed them in a mortar. He used his wand to Levitate ten dried lacewing flies out of a jar, adding them to the mortar and charming the pestle. Once a fine powder, he poured the contents into the cauldron.

Harry stopped paying attention, allowing his mind to lull against the background repetition of Malfoy’s methodical brewing, the scrape of mortar, the clang of the stirring rod on the side of the cauldron. He noticed that Malfoy’s cheekbones, though still pointy, seemed to fit his face now.

After awhile, Malfoy sat on the stool next to Harry, back aristocratically straight. Harry stared at him for a moment, and then Malfoy slumped over onto his elbows, his body slouching like Harry’s. “Need to wait ten minutes.”

Harry nodded.

“This is pointless, isn’t it?” Malfoy asked, turning his head in his hands to look at Harry.

“Which part? Brewing this potion? Coming back to Hogwarts?”

“You sitting here with me,” Malfoy said seriously, and Harry noticed how stormy his grey eyes looked.

Harry shrugged. What did that even mean? “You mean because I’m not helping? Or like, existentially?”

Malfoy’s mouth curled up and he huffed out half a laugh. “I mean, it’s not like we can be friends now. Tell me your most pessimistic thoughts about me, Potter. I know that’s what you’re good at these days—I’ve seen your parchment for Penelope.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Worst thoughts. Okay: People can’t really change. You were too much of an arsehole—even if you change, it’ll never be enough. Once a fascist, always a fascist. You’re posh and privileged, even if you’re depressed and your life was changed by the war.”

Malfoy sighed, and somehow his eyes flashed with hurt but his mouth retained the shape of amusement. “Penelope would say you’re suffering from unhelpful thinking. What were the logical errors she taught us? All or nothing thinking. Jumping to conclusions. You should come up with an alternative thought.”

Harry snorted. “Do you think I’m wrong?” he asked, head still resting in the hand propped up by his elbow.

“I don’t know,” Malfoy said. “I know I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

“Tell me your most pessimistic thoughts about me,” Harry said.

Malfoy stood, grabbing a stirring rod to check the potion. “I have lots of depressive and pessimistic thoughts, Potter. But none of them are about you.”

Harry didn’t know what to think, so he watched Malfoy complete their assignment.

***

Harry was on a beach. Judging from how warm it was, and how blue the water was, it seemed to be not anywhere in the British Isles.

“So you want to punch me?”

Harry turned his head, at once expecting and shocked to find Malfoy laying next to him in the hot sand. Malfoy looked gorgeous, Harry thought, though he also looked completely ridiculous because his skin was so pale it nearly got lost in the sea of sand.

“Can you come up with an alternative thought?” Malfoy asked, his face breaking into an amused smirk.

Harry felt himself smiling.

Harry’s eyes flew open, blinking rapidly in time with his heart. His face was pushed into his pillow, the first light of morning peeking through the window. _Fuck._

Harry lay awake in bed, mind racing unhelpfully, until Ron and Hermione woke up and ushered him to the Great Hall for breakfast. 

“She thinks you need imagination?” Hermione asked, helping herself to a large scoop of eggs.

“Yeah,” Harry said, looking across the Great Hall to where Malfoy was chatting with Parkinson at the Slytherin table. Malfoy wasn’t eating his food.

“That’s annoying,” Hermione said.

“Huh?” Harry turned to her. He wasn’t used to Hermione complaining about assignments unless they were for Divination.

“It’s just,” she said, “imagination is so fleeting. It’s not like you can rely on it. And after you’ve been dealing with Prophecies and fate and horrifying realities for the last few years—it’s not like you had a lot of time to sit around _imagining_ things. It’s not like we got rid of Voldemort with our imaginations.”

Harry shrugged.

“You can only take it once, mate,” Ron added, waving his fork at Harry. “You don’t want to get addicted to that. I always thought Xenophilius has taken one too many Draughts of Pure Imagination. Also, please don’t get addicted to that, of all potions. That’s such a Ravenclaw addiction.”

“I’m not going to get addicted to any potions,” Harry said, then wondered how his life had ended up with him here, alive, but needing to declare that he wasn’t going to develop a potions habit.

“It’s not very helpful, is it?” Ron asked. “Penelope suggesting you need a better imagination? What’s she going to do, go back in time and give you a childhood with more fairy tales?”

Harry could've used a childhood with more fairy tales.

“I don’t know,” Harry said, taking a bite of chicken. “When you were a kid, what did you like to imagine?”

Ron grinned. “That I had a treehouse with wards strong enough to keep out all siblings. And inside it, a magical sandbox—we couldn’t afford one, ‘course—with all the cool little sand broom toys that would fly around the sand castles and stuff. And I’d have money for new clothes and become Head Boy, and a star Quidditch player. You know, the usual.”

Hermione reached an arm around Ron’s shoulders and squeezed.

Harry smiled. “What about you, Mi?”

Hermione smiled. “I used to always imagine the worlds of the books I read. That I would do well in school, get an impressive job, make my parents proud. That I had lots of friends who always wanted to play with me—but not dolls, I didn’t like dolls. I imagined falling in love, too, I guess.”

Harry’s heart swelled with fondness.

“What about you, mate?” Ron asked.

Harry thought about it. “Mostly that I’d get out of the cupboard.”

Harry looked away when he saw their sad, understanding smiles.

***

Harry got to the Advanced Potions classroom first and let his bag slide off his shoulder and thud to the floor. He walked to their cauldron and peered over the top. The potion, iridescent rainbow, swirled slowly.

“Hullo,” Malfoy said a minute later, entering the room. He looked tired.

“It’s so interesting,” Harry said, staring at the shimmering potion.

A note next to the cauldron read:

> _Potion looks perfect, boys! Drink a size four phial each, and leave the rest here. I'll dispose of it later. -Professor S._

  
Malfoy came to stand by Harry’s side and read the note. "He'll 'dispose of it,' alright."

Harry snorted. 

“So we drink it and the effects will last for a few hours, at least.”

“Alright,” Harry said. “It’s going to make us act barmy, isn’t it? Like, have you ever taken Felix Felicis?”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, and Harry winced, remembering that he’d won that phial Malfoy had wanted. For reasons he wouldn’t allow himself to consider right now.

“It shouldn’t make us act strange, unless imaginative is strange. Which I suppose it is, for us, these days. It doesn’t affect behaviour or desire like Felix Felicis would.”

“Let’s just do it,” Harry said, grabbing two phials and filling them with the shimmering liquid, handing one to Malfoy.

For a moment they stared at the phials.

“Why do I feel like we’re about to do shots together?” Malfoy asked, crinkling his nose, which Harry couldn’t help but think was pretty cute. And Merlin, where had that thought come from?

“It might go down better with some salt and lime,” Harry pointed out, and Malfoy laughed. “What do we do after we drink it?”

“I asked Penelope that,” Malfoy said. “If we should have a list of things to think or talk about or something. She said ‘you won’t need it.’”

“That’s kinda ominous, isn’t it?” Harry asked.

Malfoy didn’t answer, only raised the potion to his lips and drank. Harry hurried to drink his too, not wanting to look like he had been waiting for Malfoy to drink first.

It didn’t feel like anything. Harry’d been expecting some sort of Felix-like sense of possibility to flow through his body.

“Did it work?” Malfoy asked.

“No idea,” Harry said. This was fucking awkward. He didn’t want to sit here for hours in the dungeon with Malfoy wondering whether the potion was working. “Want to go outside?” he asked. “It’s probably nice out.”

“Yeah, okay,” Malfoy agreed, looking around the room and grabbing his wand from the desk. “Should we bring our bags?” 

“Nah, I have an idea,” Harry said. “Kreacher!” 

The old elf popped into view. “Yes, Master Harry?” Then Kreacher noticed Malfoy and tripped over his long feet. “You are a Black.”

Malfoy seemed amused by the elf’s recognition. “Yes, indeed.”

“Er, Kreacher, can you bring each of our bags back to our rooms?”

“Of course,” the elf said, grabbed the bags, and Disapparated.

“Leave it to Harry Potter to have a house-elf at Hogwarts,” Malfoy said.

Harry snorted. “He’s here because he needed a home and there was nothing for him to do at Grimmauld Place, the house I inherited.” A vision of Grimmauld Place swam into Harry’s mind. “Although,” he said, walking out into the corridor, “I suppose I could’ve tasked him with some of the remodelling tasks. Maybe start small, taking down some of the wallpaper, painting a room. The downstairs bathroom would do well with an overhaul, but the claw-foot tub might look rad if the rest was changed—” 

He stopped. 

Malfoy gaped at him. “The potion worked.”

Harry blinked. “It did.” It was an odd feeling. Harry hadn’t been able to muster any excitement or motivation about fixing up his house, and he still didn’t feel inclined to do any work on it, but he now had a clear image in his head of what it could look like. What was possible. What might work to make it feel more like a home. “That’s—wow.”

Malfoy started walking again, leading them up the stairs. 

“So what are your plans for after Hogwarts?” Harry asked, just for something to say.

“I don’t have plans, really, except trying to figure out how to avoid my parents’ attempts to save the family name through me.” Draco walked into the entrance hall, then continued, “Of course, I’d love to apply to a Potions apprenticeship. I might be able to find one to accept me if I went out of the country—France? Or anywhere, really. I could go to the US.” Malfoy started laughing. “I can imagine the look on my parents’ faces if I told them I was going to study in the US and it is a fabulous image.”

Malfoy spun around to look at Harry and clamped his hand over his mouth. “Wha—I don’t—I never think like that. I can still think of about a million reasons why none of those things will ever happen.”

Harry chuckled. “It’s kind of wild.”

They walked out the door and down the front steps of the castle, heading towards the Great Lake. 

“What about you, Potter?” Malfoy asked. “After school.”

“I have no idea. I have exactly zero plans. Except sleeping for a week. I mean, I don’t think I’d really like to sit around doing nothing forever, but just until I figure it out, you know? Maybe I could see myself buying a cottage and making furniture and the papers would write articles about how I was such an eccentric recluse Saviour. Or maybe I’ll take up skateboarding and do magic at skateparks and develop a weird cult following of Muggles. Or maybe—” Harry pressed his lips shut. “Why do I want to keep talking? We didn’t accidentally brew Babbling Beverage, did we?”

Malfoy’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “A skateboard cult leader? Really, Potter? I saw a skateboard once when I was on an outing with Mother. I wonder what it’s like to ride and how they stay upright. I imagine there must be a charm in the wood, because it seems highly unlikely otherwise, don’t you think?”

Harry pointed at Malfoy and started laughing. “Why can’t we shut up?”

“I don’t know,” Malfoy said, eyes wide. “Maybe we imagine that the other person wants to hear?”

“Or maybe feeling imaginative makes you want to share things?” Harry mused. “I have no idea.”

“It very well may. Imaginative people always do seem to be sharers,” Malfoy said. “Good grief. We’re just going to have to embrace the chattiness, aren’t we? Unless you want to go our separate ways.”

Harry, inexplicably, felt hurt by that. “I mean, if you want to, though I imagine that Penelope wanted us to stay together. Also I suppose all our other friends will think we’ve gone round the twist if we talk to them like this.”

“That’s true,” Malfoy responded. “Better to stick with each other, because at least we understand why we can’t stop talking and coming up with crazy ideas about skateboards.”

“To be fair, you haven’t had any crazy ideas about skateboards.”

“Yet,” Malfoy said, turning and raising an eyebrow. “What if I proposed that we should invent magical skateboards? There’s a career for us, right there. We’d get rich, there’d be plenty of interesting Charms Theory to interest me. There’d be,” he waved his hand, “cutting wood, or whatever it is that you like to do with your hands.”

“You’re imagining us introducing skateboards to the magical world. When we finish school.” Harry laughed, bursting with incredulity.

“Why the fuck not?” Malfoy said, his posh accent striking Harry’s ears as sounding good when applied to unconcerned cursing. “The war is over, Potter. We don’t need to wallow in it forever. We can come up with careers that just ignore all that shit. Fuck politics.”

Harry chuckled nervously. “Fuck politics.”

“Fuck politics!” Malfoy laughed. They’d reached the lake, and Malfoy sat by a little copse of trees, wrapping his arms across his chest against the chill in the air. “Maybe that was your problem when thinking about careers—you were thinking inside the box. You were thinking all possible career options were captured by the pamphlets Hogwarts hands out. You needed some imagination to realise your life goals are actually about wheeled wood planks.”

Harry snorted and sat down next to Malfoy. “What about you? Isn’t that your problem, too? Not using enough imagination when thinking about how to deal with your parents? I mean, can you just imagine yourself saying ‘Fuck you’ to them?”

Malfoy reached forward and grabbed Harry’s forearm, his eyes alive, and Harry froze. Malfoy was touching him.

“I can imagine it, Potter, and it’s a fantastic image, even if I know I wouldn’t actually do it.”

“What are you imagining?” Harry asked, unable to keep half a grin off his face.

“Mother and Father are seated in the garden—because I’d rather use this potion-induced imaginative power for happier things than thinking of the fucking Manor—and I say to them, ‘Hullo, Mother, Father, fuck you, and there’s no way I’m allowing you to use me as your political pawn. I will refuse all betrothals you arrange. I’m gay by the way. I don’t even care if I ever produce an heir. I won’t be living in this Manor anymore.’ And then Mother raises an eyebrow and Summons a bottle of champagne, because she’s actually quite capable of dealing with drama, but Father turns whiter and whiter until his face is the colour of his dyed hair and he clutches his chest as he faints, falling off his chair and landing on the floor, his head lolling onto the dirt.”

Malfoy’s eyes widened as he realised how much he’d said. “I don’t—” he stammered, “I don’t actually want to say that to them. At least, not like that. I really can’t do all that.”

But Harry was overcome with laughter, leaning back on the tree, his sides hurting as he imagined a knowing, disapproving look on Narcissa’s face and Lucius collapsing onto the ground. Malfoy laughed with him. “Oh Merlin,” Harry said, reaching a hand up to wipe a tear at his eye, “that is the best thing I’ve ever envisioned.”

“What about you, Potter?” Malfoy asked. “If you imagine your best future, what is it? A garden wedding to a ginger bride, a bunch of mini-Saviours? Or do you have a thing with Granger and the other Weasley now? Rumour has it you three always sleep together.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “We do sleep together, but we don’t _sleep together._ They’re a couple. And I’m not with Ginny anymore, you must have realised that. It was all over the fucking Prophet.”

“Why?” Malfoy asked.

Harry realised that it was possible they were now talking without the influence of the potion. It was hard to say, but this didn't seem to be about imagination. But he kept talking anyway. “A lot of reasons,” Harry said. “We changed too much. Also, if you hadn’t realised, I’m pretty messed up right now. She couldn’t understand. Ginny’s always about doing things. She couldn’t understand that I didn’t want to do anything.” Harry sighed. “I mean. I think she’s better off. We’re still friends.”

“Are you better off?”

Harry looked at Malfoy. “I suppose. I don’t want to drag anyone else down. I’m doing fine. I’ve got friends. I’m alive. It could be worse.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which question?”

Malfoy raised a challenging eyebrow. “Imagine your best future.”

Harry smiled and looked out across the lake. “I see my friends a lot. I get a new little house somewhere. In the country, maybe, where I can fly. I get a crup or something. Find a job I enjoy, or not, whatever makes me happy. Find a partner who makes me laugh. Maybe have kids.” Harry paused. “I don’t want fancy stuff. I feel like I’ve had enough big dreams. I just want the normal stuff now.”

“Why’d you say ‘partner’?” Malfoy asked.

“Huh? Oh, cause I’m bi,” Harry said. He almost didn’t say anything else, but then he had this vision of it maybe going well if he said what he wanted to, and he added, “Were you joking before, about being gay? Was that just you trying to list all the things you thought would shock your parents?”

Malfoy was staring at Harry. “Um. No. My parents don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ll tell them now. But with the war and everything, it just seemed completely unimportant. Why bother with all that if you’re going to end up dead, you know? But even with this potion I can’t imagine that conversation going well. They are concerned about the inheritance and the heir and all that.”

“What would they say, do you think?” Harry asked.

Malfoy leaned back on his arms, closed his eyes. “They’d tell me my desires are unavoidable but that I need to marry a witch to make a good match, to align them with a proper family, to have a child in a traditional conception—because the entail is written so that children of male pregnancy and of adoption aren’t considered true heirs—and that I can fuck anyone I want discreetly on the side, as is befitting my social position. They’d probably use the word ‘dalliance.’ ‘You may pursue discreet dalliances, Draco,’ they’d say.” Malfoy paused, opened his eye. “Wow, fuck, this potion works for imagining bad things, too.”

Harry could feel anger bubbling inside him. They’d gone through so much shit, only for what? For Malfoy to be constrained by backwards pure-blood traditions? Harry wanted to yell about it, but that seemed like it’d probably hurt Malfoy more, so instead he went for distraction.

“Imagine something good happening to you. What first comes to mind?”

Malfoy gave him an impenetrable look. “I don’t really want to answer that. Unless you want me to lie.”

Harry frowned. “Er, no. You don’t have to answer.” He dug his fingers into the grass, picking at the blades. “Do you ever wonder if things could’ve gone differently?”

“Differently, how?” Malfoy asked.

“If we could’ve been friends. If you hadn’t been such a fucking git. I can imagine it.”

“I was always going to be a git, Potter. No potion can make me imagine otherwise.”

“Well yeah,” Harry said. He wouldn’t want Malfoy not to be a git, obviously. Wait, why was that obvious? “But like, if someone had taught you some more tolerant ideas as a kid. We could’ve been friends if you hadn’t insulted Ron that first day of school. Or Hagrid.”

“You’re asking me to imagine the sky is pink,” Malfoy said, but then he closed his eyes and smiled. “I’m imagining a pink sky.”

The sunlight that was managing to force its way through the clouds glinted in Malfoy’s hair. He looked beautiful, and Harry suddenly imagined what it would be like to reach over and run his hands through it, to press their lips together, and, oh. Harry wasn’t going to let this potion bring his imagination there. 

“What’s the world like with a pink sky?” Harry asked, trying to distract his potion-addled brain. 

“I’m imagining my parents weren’t such blood purists and you and I both got Sorted in Hufflepuff.”

Harry laughed. “Hufflepuff?”

“Why not, it’s just an imagining,” Malfoy said. “We’re best friends, because obviously among you, me, Finch-Fletchley, Macmillan, and Hopkins, we’d be best friends.”

Harry kept laughing, mesmerised by Malfoy’s story.

“You hook up with Bones and Finch-Fletchley in year five, and I get really annoyed.”

Harry laughed. “Why?”

Malfoy sat up, opened his eyes. “Nevermind,” he said. “Do you ever wonder about ways the war could’ve gone differently?”

“No,” Harry said with some force. “It’s—it’s too close. I can’t question it. I can’t, like, think about it objectively. Maybe someday. Right now I just need to convince myself I did the best I knew how.”

“Hey,” Malfoy said with a sigh. “I know I never really said this out loud, but I’m glad you won. I realised that too late. But. And you did well. I didn’t mean ‘wonder about how the war could’ve gone differently’ like that. I meant like, what if other people hadn’t been fucking idiots, not that you should’ve done anything differently.”

“We all could’ve done things differently,” Harry said, trying to suppress the imagination that was trying to run wild in his brain.

“I think about it all the time,” Malfoy sighed. “It’s probably my most common type of unhelpful thought, according to Penelope. Just constant blame and ‘what ifs.’”

“Imagine this,” Harry said, managing a smile. “Imagine the only way Voldemort could’ve been defeated was for you to go through all that shit. Because of the wand and everything else. Imagine it was the only way.”

Malfoy sighed. “Maybe. I’m sorry, by the way. Imagine that. I’m sorry, and I’m actually telling you out loud. Why am I telling you that?”

Harry looked up at the trees, the birds flying around. “I know you’re sorry.”

For a few minutes they sat in silence, a million possibilities swirling through Harry’s brain. He wondered whether Malfoy’s brain was doing the same.

“We should try to fill out these Thought Records for Penelope,” Harry said after awhile.

Malfoy sighed, but pulled his and a quill out of his robe pocket. Harry had his parchment, but had to Conjure a quill. It would probably break two minutes into using it; Conjured quills were shite.

He read the most recent thought he’d logged on the parchment. Under “Situation” he’d scrawled “reading the Prophet.” Under “Feeling” he’d written “despondence, apathy.” Under “Negative automatic thought,” he’d written “Kingsley is a sell-out and all politics is doomed.” 

The news had been some sort of compromise about werewolf rights; some families who’d been harmed by werewolves under Death Eater control had sued the Ministry, bringing the case all the way up to the Wizengamot. Harry had been hoping for a ruling unambiguously supportive of werewolf rights that also addressed the harm the family had experienced. Instead, the Wizengamot had voted to curtail certain rights of free movement for werewolves and had terminated the werewolf liaison position to the Wizengamot. Harry felt sick about the whole thing. He hadn’t fought a war for _that_.

He stared at that empty “evidence that does not support the thought” column and closed his eyes. What was some possible evidence that Kingsley wasn’t being a sell-out? His brain helpfully supplied a vision of a scenario in which Kingsley had to fight to prevent an even worse outcome. Or a scenario in which Kingsley thought he could use this agreement as a basis for a future push to help werewolves. Fuck, Harry didn’t know. But the visions swimming through his brain told him they were at least possibilities. 

Harry opened his eyes and started scratching out some “evidence against,” watching Malfoy out of the corner of his eye doing the same.

It was pleasant enough by the lake, birds chirping, the distant distinctive sound of hippogriff squawks, and the odd bray of a thestral providing a backdrop of sound that mixed with the scratching of Malfoy’s quill. Harry’s Conjured quill broke, as expected, and after his third Conjured quill, Malfoy sighed and pulled a spare quill from his robe. Harry nodded his thanks and imagined how strange it was to be writing with a quill that Malfoy had used before—maybe he’d used it to write personal thoughts in a diary. Maybe he’d used it during the war. 

Harry forced his imaginings back to the task at hand, and before he knew it, his columns were finally filled in. He smiled. He would be able to show Penelope that he’d actually finished something.

Malfoy appeared to have finished too, but Harry didn’t want to ask what he’d been writing about. He didn’t want to spoil the pleasant silence.

“We didn’t imagine the present,” Malfoy said after awhile. “We imagined the past, we imagined the future.”

Harry looked at him, sitting there in the grass, his blond hair falling elegantly over his forehead. “I’m imagining you shave your head.”

Malfoy’s face took on a confused shock and he laughed. “What, now?”

“Why not? I mean, why not imagine it? You’d look funny.”

Malfoy ran a hand through his hair. “I suppose I would. But that’s not really what I meant when I said we haven’t imagined anything about the present. Though of course I’m flattered if the best way you can think to use this once-in-a-lifetime imagination is to think of my looks.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. What do you want me to imagine? What will be served for dinner? That maybe next time Ron will share his ice mice?”

“We should imagine how we could make this year better,” Malfoy said, looking out over the lake, where the Giant Squid had just broken the surface, casting ripples. “Imagine these Serotonin Potions and all this cognitive-behavioural therapy help us.”

“Imagine Ron gets a handle on his nightmares,” Harry added.

“Imagine Greg learns to deal with his grief about Vince.”

It took Harry an embarrassingly long moment to realise who Greg and Vince were. “Imagine we enjoy our last year here, before we have to go do...whatever it is that adults do.”

Malfoy suddenly sat up straight. “We should have a party.”

“Like, an actual party?”

“Yes, it would be brilliant. Everyone can get drunk and we can act like stupid teenagers rather than war veterans.”

Every time someone (Padma, Justin, Luna) had tried to get Harry to go hang out or have a party or go drinking, he’d declined. He’d rather stay in his room with Ron and Hermione, or by himself. That wasn’t a crime, was it? It was so much effort to go out. So much that could go wrong. It wouldn’t be fun, anyway. It’d just be a lot of chatter about meaningless nonsense that made Harry itchy with how that kind of conversation seemed so trite to him now. He couldn’t pretend the war hadn’t happened. He didn’t want to pretend, and he didn’t _have_ to do anything—not anymore.

But right now Harry could imagine them all laughing, playing stupid party games (in his mind, everyone was pretending it wasn’t obvious that Seamus was using magic to make the bottle land on Dean), the look on Hermione’s face when she tried a tequila shot and the look on Ron’s when she proposed making it a body shot, Luna and Ginny aggressively playing Twister, Harry hanging back in the corner chatting up Malfoy, leaning in to kiss behind Malfoy's ear—

“Er, that’d be fun,” Harry said, trying to smile and not freak out about the fact that at least three times now he’d imagined himself getting with Malfoy, of all people. Malfoy, with whom he apparently had no trouble imagining himself as friends. Malfoy, who was sat here imagining things with him and laughing at Harry’s jokes. Malfoy, who got it. 

“Hey Malfoy,” Harry said, his entire body flooded with imagination. “Want to go to a skatepark Saturday? I have no idea how to skateboard. We can suck at it together. It’ll be fun.”

Malfoy turned to Harry, his eyes full of questions and—if Harry was reading him right—hope. “You want the two of us—you and me—to go to a Muggle skatepark?”

“Why not?” Harry asked, and even as he said it he could think of a million answers to that question.

But Malfoy shook his head and grinned. “Alright. But only if we can use Cushioning Charms.”

“Obviously,” Harry said, smiling back. The sun was getting lower in the sky; Harry glanced at his watch. “Nearly dinner.”

Malfoy pushed off his hands and stood up, brushing specks of grass and dirt from his robes with an effortless elegance.

Harry stood, feeling awkward standing next to Malfoy. 

“So,” Malfoy said, starting to walk back to the castle. “We're really going to go skateboarding?”

Harry turned to look at him. “Skateboarding. You know what? I’m actually excited about it.”

He shouldn’t be so open—fuck, what was wrong with him? He was acting like a Hufflepuff, and Malfoy was going to take the piss.

“Yeah, Potter. You know, me too.”

Apparently even mild excitement about something had become out of the norm enough for them that they didn't tease each other about it.

***

Harry and Malfoy went their separate ways at the Great Hall, and Harry enjoyed his dinner. The chatter around him went on as always—Parvati sitting next to him talking about some film she’d seen about toys that come to life when humans aren’t around—and Harry could feel his usual depressive thoughts slipping in. How could she actually go to the cinema and enjoy herself? How could other people manage to talk and think about normal things like that? How come he resented even his friends’ showing happiness? How come he couldn't just throw himself into stupid things like children’s films? But today, after taking the potion and spending the day outside chatting with Malfoy, he could sort of imagine a better way to react, even as he still felt all of those thoughts.

So instead of sitting and brooding over his potatoes, he spoke up. “So is it just a fun film, or is it one of these stupid ones trying to teach kids a lesson?”

Parvati turned to him, her face showing a bit of surprise at his question. “I cried.”

Harry’s first thought (an unhelpful one, he was sure Penelope would say) was to roll his eyes and think how silly girls were for crying at fucking children’s films. But Harry ignored that impulse and just waited for her to continue.

“It was a heartbreaking story of growing up,” she said, pulling one leg up under her bottom, raising herself up in both intensity and height. “There’s this doll, Jessie, and she is now a collector’s item, and Woody thinks Jessie doesn’t understand what it’s like to lose a friend, but then Jessie tells him her backstory, because she does understand! And turns out Jessie used to belong to a little girl but the little girl forgot about Jessie as she grew up, and Jessie got kicked under the bed and eventually tossed into a box of free stuff that was left on the side of the road, Harry. Don’t you see? She understands. Because she’s experienced loss, too.”

Harry stared at Parvati, not knowing what to say. She leaned closer and wrapped her long arms around him in a hug. Then she pulled back and announced loudly, “Anyway, I cried like a baby. She can never go back, you know?”

Harry smiled, shaking his head a bit, and finished dinner feeling more peaceful than he had in a long time.

He wasn’t sure exactly when the potion wore off—if it was on the walk back to the common room with Ron and Hermione, or after he’d installed himself in his spot on the bed—but wear off it did.

He pulled the parchment for Penelope out of his pocket and started reading through the alternative thoughts he’d written. But instead of feeling that they were perfectly reasonable alternative thoughts, Harry felt a rush of skepticism and despondence. 

“So what was it like?” Hermione asked, leaning back against a tower of pillows.

“It was like...you couldn’t stop daydreaming?” Harry ventured. “About all sorts of things? And you want to talk about it all, even if it’s completely unlikely?” It was a hard feeling to put into words.

Hermione made a thoughtful “hmm,” while Ron lay in the middle of the bed, looking up into the air where he was writing Charms theorems in the air with his wand.

“What’d Malfoy have to say?” Ron asked. “Did you imagine throttling each other?”

Harry laughed. “No. I dunno what he had to say. He’s trying to figure his shit out just like we are.”

Ron looked away from his sparkly floating notes. “...Really.”

“Yeah, I dunno, it was actually kind of nice. Fuck, I dunno.”

Ron turned the other way to look at Hermione, but she ignored him. “So you finished your worksheet for Penelope?” She gestured at Harry’s parchment.

“Yeah. I don’t know how good any of it is.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said with a smile. 

“Malfoy and I are going skateboarding this weekend,” Harry said.

Ron pushed himself up on his elbows and Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Skateboarding?!” they said together.

Harry laughed. “Long story, but yeah. I’m actually looking forward to it, I think. I mean, maybe it was a stupid thing to plan. But getting out of the castle for a bit. No offence to you two.”

But Hermione just smiled, and Ron said, “Have fun, mate.”

***

“Draco tells me that you two are going skateboarding.”

Harry shifted in his seat. “Yeah. We made plans to go Saturday.”

Penelope’s sharp brown eyes analysed him. “So you don’t think you’ll actually go?”

“Hm?” Harry asked, shoving a hand in his pocket. "I didn't say that."

“You said ‘we made plans,’ not ‘we’re going.’ That wording seems to suggest that you don’t think you’ll actually go. Or you’re giving yourself an out.”

“I guess,” Harry said, uncomfortable with this whole thing. “Why can’t I just play it by ear? See how I feel then.”

Penelope looked at him, her shrewd brown eyes seeing right through him. “It’s possible that you’re already setting yourself up to back out at the last minute. Does it feel that way to you?”

Harry sighed. “Probably. I just—I might not feel like it. I might. It would be fun, I’m sure.”

“Would it matter if it wasn’t?”

“If it wasn’t fun?” Harry asked. When she nodded, he thought. “I guess not. But I’ve never been to a place like that before. It’s not comfortable, you know? And with Malfoy…”

“Do you feel that there are a lot of comfortable places?”

Harry knew he didn’t really have an answer to that question. “I don’t know. Hogwarts. The Burrow.”

“Are those the only comfortable places you can think of?”

“Yeah.”

Penelope leaned forward. “Do you think when this school year is over, you’ll have to face some uncomfortable things, no matter what? You won’t be living here or at the Burrow, will you?”

Harry could feel his breath catch in his chest at that reminder—it was something he’d been doing his level best to ignore. “Yeah.”

“Comfort can come from things other than just places, too, Harry,” Penelope said kindly. “People, hobbies, stuff like that. Think about that?”

“Okay.”

“It’s okay to be uncomfortable.”

“Okay.”

***

Over the next few days, when Harry thought about the skateboarding, he felt a profound desire not to go. How had Harry ever thought it was a good idea to suggest going out with Malfoy, of all people? That they could be what—friends? _Boyfriends?_ That Malfoy could be interested in him like that, that he could be interested in Malfoy like that. That they could have fun together? That Harry would want to leave the castle at all? It was unimaginable. But it was also still far enough away that Harry could think of it hypothetically, like something that would maybe be something he might have fun doing eventually, and he ignored it.

On Friday night, Hermione asked, “So did you figure out a skatepark to go to? I don’t even know where I’d look it up. I suppose you could Apparate to a Muggle town and then look it up once you get there.”

“Huh?” Harry asked. “Oh, not yet.”

“Are you still planning to go?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well then you should probably think about where you’re going to go—”

“Can you lay off me, Hermione?” Harry snapped. “Just leave me the fuck alone, okay?”

Hermione’s eyes widened, and Harry immediately felt bad, but also still annoyed at her for overwhelming him. She knew how easily Harry was overwhelmed these days.

“Sorry,” he said, but that came out like a bite, too.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just going to give you some space, okay?” 

She left the room quietly, without drama, and Harry threw himself face first onto the bed, burying his head in his pillow.

The next morning he sent Draco a letter saying he wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go to the skatepark.

***

Harry was annoyed with himself. Why couldn't he just do things? Was it just the depression, or was he some horribly lazy or self-sabotaging person?

He went to class, and sat in the common room smiling at Seamus and Neville's reenactment of a mishap from the greenhouse, and ate some food, and let Ginny experiment with hair charms on him. But he felt numb—more numb than he had in awhile, and the feeling of going backwards on the fucked-up scale was worse than being fucked-up in the first place.

He wanted to skip the “workshop” with Penelope, but Hermione and Ron hustled him out of their room and into his daily routine. They knew once he started the routine, he'd finish it. The hard part was that first step—out of bed, out of their room—and sometimes he needed a push. Or not a push, exactly, but kind, ushering arms.

When he got to Penelope's office, he wasn't sure whether he should look at Malfoy and pretend to smile like nothing was weird, or ignore him, or make some excuse for having cancelled their plans. Fortunately Malfoy made the decision for him by staring resolutely ahead, into Penelope's fire, not so much as glancing at Harry.

Harry sighed and slumped into his seat. Good. If Malfoy ignored him, all the better. Much less weird. Harry didn't mind being ignored by Malfoy.

"Good morning," Penelope said, after she'd finished with some papers at her desk and settled into her chair. "Today we're going to talk about your experience with the potion and look at your Thought Records. Depending how far we get, we can discuss types of unhelpful thoughts and how best to interrupt them. Do either of you have anything you'd like to start with?"

Penelope's bright eyes were too much for Harry, and he found himself looking at the upholstery of his chair. It was a red and brown scratchy weave. 

"Gentlemen?"

Malfoy wasn't talking either, and that made Harry feel marginally better.

"Alright then!" Penelope said, seemingly trying to balance their lack of enthusiasm. "Let's see your Thought Records."

Harry reached into his bag and pulled out the parchment, handing it over at the same time as Malfoy. For the first time that day, they made eye contact. Harry wasn't sure what he'd expected to see there, but Malfoy just looked tired.

"Look at these completed parchments!" Penelope said, her eyes scanning the words that Harry had written. She looked up at them. "So what was the experience like, with the potion? Were you able to see how a bit of imagination doesn't magically cure the depression, but can help you overcome some of the stuck thoughts? Do you see why Healers used to put it in potions for people struggling with depression?"

Harry wanted to answer. He liked Penelope and he didn't want to leave her hanging. But he just—couldn't.

"Draco," she prodded. "Tell me about your experience taking the potion. Was it what you expected?"

"I suppose," Malfoy said, his voice sounding even more patrician than usual. "It showed me that my imagination is not principled. It's dangerous. It's not prudent."

Penelope nodded. "True. Imagination isn't concerned with principles and prudence, is it?" She paused, and when Malfoy didn't elaborate, she continued, "Do you think that means we suppress our imaginations because they might open us up to disappointment?"

Malfoy bristled. "Yes. I think yes, I do exactly that, and it's _smart._ It's smart that I don't allow myself delusions like thinking I can somehow have a fulfilling career, even given my past. It's smart that I don't allow myself the delusion of thinking Potter might want to spend time with me when he's not high on a fucking imagination potion." Malfoy's eyes darted to the side, landing on Harry and then flitting away.

"I didn't—" Harry started, but then he didn't know what else to say, and closed his mouth.

After a few moments of silence (Penelope always left silence, always waited for them to fill it), she said, "Did you have the same experience, Harry?"

"Er, no. Not quite. I just—afterward, I just feel a bit numb. Like, what does it matter if I can come up with these imaginings, if they're not going to happen? I just feel. Blah."

Penelope smiled. "Blah."

The fire crackled.

"You know," she continued, "imagination is like a muscle. Often, with disuse, it withers as we grow up. All the weight of society's expectations of 'acting like a grown-up' beat it out of us. In your cases, you were forced to grow up even more abruptly than most people, because of the war. And sometimes, like Draco said, we intentionally keep it weak, like a defence mechanism, because if we don't dream, we can't fail to achieve our dreams." 

She paused to let her words sink in, and Harry struggled to look past the sappy, cliched words to try to find her meaning underneath.

"But right now, we need to exercise that imagination. Because we need something to aim for, don't we?"

"You don't mean 'we,'" Malfoy pointed out, and Harry rolled his eyes even though he privately agreed. "You don't actually include yourself in that statement."

"Well, I do," Penelope said. "I’m a person. I need imagination, too, even if my goals are different from yours. Imagination is important, Draco, even if you need to temper it with realism. None of us know what the world is going to be like, now, after the war. Maybe things will be different. Surely there are things that are impossible, but many things are possible. Many future paths are available to each of you."

Harry unintentionally let out a grumble, thinking of all the ways he didn't have control over his future—all the ways his life belonged to the press and the public, all the things that would be said and thought about him despite anything he did. 

"Something to say, Harry?"

He frowned. What did he even want to say? "Shouldn't I be feeling better by now? I'm feeling worse than I was before, in some ways."

Penelope leaned forward. "There's no timeline. I wish there was. But I think you know you are doing better, even if some days are worse than others. Recovery isn't like casting an _Ascendio_ , it's like a rollercoaster up a mountain."

At the Muggle reference, Harry peeked at Malfoy, but Penelope's hand motions must have sufficed as explanation, because he didn't raise an eye. Or maybe he knew what rollercoasters were—it wouldn't even surprise Harry. Malfoy's surprises had ceased to be surprising.

"In any case," Penelope said, "you don't need a potion for that kind of imagination—the potion only increases the capacity you already have. You can do it, and it'll get easier the more you do it. Alright, moving on, I have some handouts for you."

***

Harry pulled off his shirt and threw it in the laundry basket, then rummaged through his drawer until he found the Montrose Magpies t-shirt he'd bought to annoy Ron when they beat the Cannons a few months ago.

Hermione and Ron were already in bed, Ron reading a graphic novel called _The Underwater Alchemist_ , and Hermione using magic to Levitate a truly enormous book called _Runes, Prophecies, and Stitches in Time_ over her knees. Ron had one arm around Hermione's shoulders, wand in his other hand, flipping pages. 

Harry smiled, his chest feeling full with love and the type of contentment that comes from things that are simple, and earthly, and achievable.

He pulled back the covers and slid into bed. He’d never had any attention span for reading before bed, and he lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling, trying to clear his mind (making a point to think only of Penelope's meditation techniques and not Snape's Occlumency orders).

Before long, Hermione drifted off, and her book fell heavily on her legs as her magic that had been holding it up dissipated with sleep. She jolted awake, and Ron put both books aside and cast _Nox._

They all still put wands under pillows at night.

"How was your workshop with Penelope today?" Hermione asked, turning towards Harry and bending her knees as Ron settled in behind her, freckled arm draped over her torso.

"It was fine." It was a cop-out answer, really, but it was the truth. It had been fine.

"Are you and Malfoy okay?" Ron asked.

"As we ever were," Harry said, hoping he succeeded in sounding lighthearted about it.

"So you were nearly killing each other, then?" Hermione asked, smiling.

Harry laughed. "Yeah, I cast Sectumsempra right in front of Penelope."

They didn't answer, and it was dark, and Harry kept talking. "He thought I cancelled because I couldn't stomach hanging out with him unless I was high on imagination potion."

Hermione opened one brown eye, the other smushed shut resting against her arm. "That's sad."

"Not true, is it?" Ron added.

"No. I just—you know, I sometimes just don't want to do stuff. It wasn't because it was Malfoy. At least, not mostly."

"You tell him that?" Hermione asked, yawning.

"Didn't get a chance."

"Do you need an imagination potion?" Ron asked, looking at Harry over Hermione's sleepy head. "To imagine he could be better?"

Harry thought about it. "No."

Ron reached his long arm over and patted Harry's hand. "So you tell him, then, yeah?"

***

The next morning after he finished his breakfast, Harry took a deep breath, said goodbye to Ron, Hermione, and Neville, and walked over to the Slytherin table.

"Hey."

Malfoy turned to look at him. "Morning, Potter. Are you lost?"

"Can you come outside with me? I want to talk to you."

Half the Slytherins around him had fallen silent, watching the two with interest.

"I'm eating breakfast."

"You've been poking that porridge for ten minutes."

Malfoy sighed. "Alright." He pushed his plate away and stood, ignoring the stares as they walked out of the Great Hall and Harry led them onto the grounds. It was cloudy, and seemed to have just stopped raining. The ground felt moist—squishy—under the soles of his trainers.

"You want to go to the lake or the Quidditch pitch? Or just wander?" Harry asked, feeling incredibly awkward. He stuffed his hands into his robe pockets.

Malfoy shrugged. "Quidditch pitch?"

Harry nodded. This conversation would be easier with the pretence of sport.

An owl swooped overhead, hooted at them, and flew on.

"Are you going to tell me what you want? Or shall I tell jokes? A hag, a witch, and a goblin walk into a bar."

"Ouch," Harry said.

"Huh?" Malfoy turned, confusion clear on his face.

Harry laughed. "Nothing. Sorry. Um." He took a breath. "I'm sorry I cancelled for skateboarding."

Malfoy snorted. "You think I care about that, Potter?"

"Er, yes. I do. I didn't cancel because I didn't want to see you. I just…I have trouble. Doing things."

Malfoy didn't say anything, just kept walking towards the pitch. 

"I do want to do stuff with you, if you want. I just." Harry sighed. "Some days I just want to stay in bed. And if something new or different is planned, it's that much worse, you know?"

Malfoy's head turned, his silvery eyes looking straight at Harry for a moment before turning forward again. "I know. I'm depressed, too, remember? It's hard not to take things personally, though. With us."

A surprised laugh escaped Harry's mouth. "True. Well, for what it's worth, I like talking with you, whether we're on imagination potions or not. It's easier than with most people."

"Yeah."

They walked in silence for a minute, turning onto the pitch and sitting in the ground-level Hufflepuff stands. 

"It's hard, with all this, to know what one wants," Malfoy said. "Isn't it?"

Harry's leg started bouncing. "Yeah. I just—I don't want you to be all careful around me, like this."

Malfoy's head spun around. "Are you actually upset with me for trying to be polite?"

"No! I mean, yes! I just want you to act normal!"

"Act _normal_?" Malfoy said, elongating the words, and then bursting into laughter. "Potter, neither of us has ever been fucking _normal._ "

"Okay, okay," Harry said, laughing. "I meant, normal for you. I want you to act like Malfoy."

Malfoy stopped laughing and leaned closer. "Would you like me to stomp on your face? Is that what you mean?"

Harry pushed him away, still laughing. "Oh, Merlin. Fuck off."

Malfoy's smile faded as he leaned back on his hands. "You said a few weeks ago that you can't believe that I can really be better." He paused. "I will never be perfect. Maybe I'll never be good enough to satisfy your Gryffindor morality. But I am already _better._ "

"I know."

"But you still want me to be an arse to you?" Malfoy asked, his brow raised.

"I don't know what the fuck I want," Harry said, thinking of career paths and housing decisions and the weight of society's expectations.

But Malfoy drew him back to the present. "Is that actually true?"

Harry turned away from the empty pitch. The morning sun glinted off Malfoy's hair. At close range, Harry could see a freckle near his left ear and that his hair got slightly darker at the roots, not like it was coloured, but like it had changed colour with time or sun exposure.

"If you buzzed your hair, it would look darker," Harry observed, stupidly.

Malfoy's eyes crinkled in amusement. "Do you really not know what you want? Because I don't know the big things, but I think I know a bit."

"Of what I want or of what you want?" Harry asked.

"Both, maybe," he said.

Malfoy was looking at Harry. Not like the cameras looked at him, not like strangers at Hogwarts saw the Saviour. Not like his acquaintances saw a classmate. Like he was looking right at _Harry._ Malfoy's eyes dropped to Harry's lips, then flew back to Harry's eyes like he shouldn't have allowed himself to look there.

"I don't want to be imagining it," Harry whispered, his leg still jiggling.

Malfoy reached out a hand and laid it on Harry's knee to still the movement. "I think maybe that's wrong. I don't think it's that you don't want to be imagining it. I think you want me to be imagining it, too."

Harry's breath caught. Malfoy was giving him an out, a chance to move away, a chance to play it like nothing had happened, but he was staring at Harry's lips and touching Harry's knee and Harry didn't have to worry he was imagining it, because it was already happening.

All the nervous energy that had been tapping his leg rerouted and Harry leaned in, pressing his lips to Malfoy's, his heart beating in his chest, and it was one of those rare moments he'd been having since last May of feeling _alive._ Not even the energy-sapping fog of depression could steal the happiness of being alive from Harry these past months, and _now_ , and he thought how stupidly lucky they were to have made it here.

Malfoy pressed into Harry's space, and he was kissing back. Heat rushed to Harry's face and chest and he reached forward to touch Draco with no real plan of where his hand would land, just wanting to touch him somewhere. It landed on his shoulder and Harry pressed his fingertips into Draco's skin. 

Draco pulled away. His eyes were bright and his hand squeezed Harry's knee, sending a jolt of heat to Harry's gut. "You know this isn't going to make us better. We're still fucked up." He looked—nervous?

Harry leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the side of Draco's mouth. "We're always going to be a little fucked up, though, aren't we. But we are getting better, slowly. Penelope will be thrilled that I actually want to do something."

Malfoy leaned back, a devious smirk on his face. "So you're saying you want to do me?"

Harry's laugh rang out, and he stood up. "Let's go flying."

***

Harry leaned back on his hands, the rough concrete digging into his palms. The sun was bright, brighter than it had been in months, making it hard to see. But Harry was happy, and the sun wasn’t giving him a headache.

"Oi! You can snake better than that!"

"What do you think snaking is?" Draco asked, squinting at the skaters.

It was mesmerising, watching the Muggles skating up and down, stopping at the top on the edge. Harry wondered what that edge was called.

On the side of the concave concrete wall was spray painted "NO WAX!"

"I have no fucking clue," Harry said.

They watched as a girl balanced the tail of her board on the ledge, then reached her other foot out, leaned in, and slid down the ramp.

"I think I might fail my Potions N.E.W.T.," Harry mused, crinkling his eyes against the sun.

"Does it really matter?" Draco asked, turning to look at Harry, squeezing one eye shut against the glare.

"No."

"I'd offer to help," Draco said, "but I think we both know we'd just be wasting my time. Besides, you don't need a Potions N.E.W.T."

Someone from across the park screamed, "You can't even land a 180, you fucking wanker, don't try me!"

"I think red shoes has a crush on black hoodie," Draco observed as one of the boys slid along the metal edge Harry didn't know the name for. Red shoes was, indeed, looking longingly at black hoodie.

"Think black hoodie ever stomped on red shoes's face?"

"Think red shoes ever sliced black hoodie open?"

Harry laughed and tipped his head back, the sun warming his skin. 

"Can we stop at the bookstore before we go back?" Draco asked, wincing as one of the boys fell and slid down the ramp on his bottom. "I know you wanted to look for that book on charming wood."

"Yeah, okay," Harry said. Then he laughed, and nudged Draco with his elbow. "Look."

Red shoes and black hoodie were snogging.

"Merlin, I can see their tongues from all the way over here."

Harry laughed, reaching over to twine his fingers with Draco's. "I can't believe you actually wore that." Draco was wearing a pair of Ron's jeans and an old t-shirt of Harry's, with shoes Transfigured into Converse.

Draco glared at him. "You told me anything else would break the Statute."

"I mean, that's not a lie. Well, I guess these Muggles might just think you were goth. In any case. You look ridiculous."

Draco glared harder.

"I like it," Harry clarified, and Draco rolled his eyes.

"Did you hear Greg was accepted to that baking programme?"

"No shit," Harry said. "Good for him." He squeezed Draco's hand. They'd both been struggling to be excited for their friends rather than despondent in their own comparative aimlessness.

They still had no idea what they were going to do come summer. Penelope was helping them to "be okay with not knowing." They kept saying they were okay with it, but Harry didn't think either of them really believed they were.

Red shoes managed a truly impressive jump.

"What would you want to try on those boards, Stability and Impact-Resistance Charms?" Draco asked.

"Maybe some Levitation Charms that would only engage in certain situations?"

Draco nodded. "No idea if it would work, but it might."

"Maybe something to help you lean in the proper amount."

A bloke wearing a Nirvana shirt arrived; he shouted hullos to his mates, threw down his board, and dropped into what Harry was pretty sure he'd heard the skaters refer to as the "bowl."

"Are we going to skate?" Draco asked.

"I can almost imagine it," Harry said, the heel of his trainer bouncing off the concrete wall. "Maybe next time?"

"Next time." Draco nodded. "With Cushioning Charms."

**Author's Note:**

> Check out Andrew Solomon's TED Talk, [Depression, the secret we share](https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_depression_the_secret_we_share/transcript#t-613665) if you're interested in a really helpful framework for understanding depression, one that informed how I wrote depression in this story.
> 
> Spotify playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/wz2ay0oiq6i8gof2yeu4552uu/playlist/6XnV33BZ0WWYwHc21LiDwL?si=gJr22SxORCmSnavhouOZQg)!
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](https://aibidil.tumblr.com)!


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